Things haven't worked out quite as planned. But this is India and we ought to have known better. It hasn't been possible to give regluar updates of our progress up to now whilst we have been on the move. But we're settled now and have rooms in Colva on the coast of South Goa. The rooms are pretty basic but they are fairly clean and the location is quite idylic under palm trees on the beach. They are only charging us 130 rupees per day. That's only just under 2 pounds (No pound symbol on this keyboard). No hot water though. But it's not too cold to shower under. We are living fairly frugally and yesterday Grahame managed on food for the whole day on under 100 rupees (1 pound 50p) having a tomato ommlete with 2 bread rolls and tea for breakfast , a thali ( thats a basic type of Indian meal consiting of a variety of different dishes - only 20 rupees (30p) here) and chinese chicken soup and singapore noodles in the evening. I spent just a few bob more but were getting quite good t finding the best value places to eat.

We were over optimistic and to be honest a little niave with our plans to travel independantly through northern India.  Whilst I'm still convinced that we could have done it, it would have been quite arduous and after Grahame's experience in Dehli alone before I arrived, we decided we should get out of Dehli as soon as possible and we booked a 12 day tour with car and driver taking us (after a half day tour of the sites of Dehli) to Agra (Taj Mahal), and then throuh Rajisthan visting Jaipur, Puskar, Jodpur & Udapur.  From there we went by sleeper trains down to Goa via Amedabad Gujerat, and Bomby to Goa. We'll now be staying in Colva until after New Year. Dehli is a truley awful place with awful people and I would try to avoid it altogether if I came again. It's different in south India and the Goan people are very nice. I didn't get the feel last year for the difference between them and the out of state Indians.  To me they were all Indians, but now I can recognise a clear distinction. The Goans by and large are reluctant Indians and regard themselves as Goan and refer to non Goan Indians as 'Indians', to disassociate themselves from them.  You can see by the way the Goan resturant staff deal with Indian customers that they are less than welcome.  There are a lot of Indian tourists here and very few Europeans.  We went up to Baga for 2 days, where we stayed in Jan/Feb,  and it was quite dead there. It must be quite diasterous for the local economy here.  Maybe things will pick up after Christmas now that the Afgahnistan situation seems to be getting sorted. I believe that there are some great flight bargains at the moment for anyone booking a last minute deal. There's absolutly no problem here over the afghan situation. the Indians are totally indifferent to what is happening and only talk about it in terms of it's effect on the tourist situation.  I waked through a Muslim area of Johdpur alone at night and had no problems at all.

Today we've come by local bus into the regional capital of Margao from Colva (about 6 miles) but literally as soon as we got off the bus , Grahame & I lost each other, so I don't know what he is up to.  I'll see him when we ge back later tis afternoon.  Well I'll end this now as I'm a very slow one finger tyist but now that I've found this particular Internet Cafe, I'll be back as it's onlt 20 rups per hour (30p) and in Colva , a tourist resort, they're charging 60 rups.

Happy Christmas and New Year to all our readers. Don't forget to sign the guestbook. 

© Kevin Gilmartin 2001. Page last updated 10 December 2001.